


Adversus Solem Ne Loquitor

by wraithnoir



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, farming as a form of love, thatching a roof as foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 15:41:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13860837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithnoir/pseuds/wraithnoir
Summary: Esca is learning to adjust to life on Marcus' family land, but he feels there is nothing here he knows, except for Marcus.





	Adversus Solem Ne Loquitor

Esca wasn’t sure he’d ever grow familiar with mornings as bright and full of daylight as mornings were here on Marcus’ ancestral lands. The closer to Rome you went, apparently, the hotter the sun beamed down on you, even in the hour when the sun was just rising and the villa was coming awake with the quiet morning labor of slaves. Water to draw, bread to bake, clothes to wash; he knew these sounds, had learned them in his own time as a slave. The bustle of a villa coming to life before the Roman owners were awake. He’d been an early riser his whole life, and had always beaten his brothers to the stables in the morning to get their horses to ride through the brisk, wet chill of Britannia’s mornings, when the dew clung to your hair and eyelashes and your toes were blue with the cold of the grasses. He’d liked to be awake and away before anyone else, though the old men and women already sitting outside would wink as he walked past, the chieftain’s youngest son who was small but fiery and who they asked a few extra blessings for when they prayed to their gods in the early morning.

Here, even rising early as he did usually wasn’t enough to save him from the heat that came up with the sun. Summer was a dry time, he’d been told, with rains coming enough to keep the fruit on the vines plump but not so much as to rot them. There were things growing that Esca didn’t know very well, some beneath the ground, some plants that Marcus had told him would be harvested for their seeds to be ground into spices, and then the fruit groves he was most pleased by, with their low, wide trees and the fruit nearing ripeness. There were fruits he didn’t know, apricots and figs and peaches. It was nearly impossible, he thought, to imagine a taste when someone described it to you. There had been dried figs and apricots to eat at the table since they’d arrived, but a fried thing was nothing like a thing plucked from a tree at the blush of its perfection, and though Marcus had tried to describe exactly what a peach was like, Esca was very aware that he would have to wait to bite into one himself before he truly knew what a peach was.

Esca stepped out of the villa, squinting against the early light, which was white in its intensity. The dawns here were not the dawns of his youth, with the pale orb of the sun swimming up through the greyness of the morning or rising on clearer days in a crown of gold and mauve until the sky revealed its blue with every-present clouds ready to make racing shadows on the ground. Already this morning there were no clouds and the sun was unimpeded as it slowly rose. There was a breeze, however, as there hadn’t been the day before, and Esca inhaled as it blew over his face and ruffled his hair. Running both hands through it to tame it a bit, he headed out toward the orchards, planning to walk past them to the newest _iugera_ Marcus had purchased for raising their horses.

Picking his way along the edge of the aqueduct, Esca turned his face to the sky. His heavier wool tunic was only going to feel hotter as the day went on, and he had found that he understood why Romans eschewed trousers. But there was pride in him, and something that was still loathe to give up his old ways when he was so far from home. So he was letting his hair grow longer even though it was going to make his neck sweaty. So he was slightly envious of the bare legs of slaves he raised his hand to greet as he headed past the groves where they worked. It was difficult for him to accept that this was the way to run a farm; none of the slaves were Britons, but he felt they were his people all the same. They were marked as he was marked. A free man told them what to do, as free men had told him. He had encouraged Marcus to hire more laborers who were free, but the labor of the slaves was counted as free and they needed to work the farm. Once they were prosperous, or nearing it, Esca intended to re-visit the discussion; Marcus had said it was their farm together, and Esca knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep easy knowing his success was based on this system. He was not a Roman. He would never be a Roman. Marcus was a modified Roman, he’d decided; he was malleable.

The horses, though, the horses were his. The pair of them, purchased from another landowner who remembered Marcus from his youth and bred fine race horses. The mare was black with a star on her forehead, the stallion trimmer than British horses were, with finer legs and his coat a charcoal mottled with ruddy bits when the sun hit him just right. They came to his call and embraced him as their kind did, the stallion nuzzling against his chest and the mare snuffling his hand for the dried apple she knew he had for her.

“Ah, don’t eat Drest’s apple for him. You can have only your own,” Esca murmured, smiling. “You get a treat now, and then you’ll let me brush you down.” He pressed his forehead to the stallion’s, inhaling the warm, strong horse of him. “Sagitta!” He laughed and pulled his hand away from the mare’s insistent mouth. “For that, you’ll be curried first. Come on.”

Pushing Drest away (which was admittedly a challenge, since Drest pushed back), Esca headed into the basic stable he and Marcus had built together. Having insisted that it be built the British way, he was comfortable there, in the way the roof slanted and the smell of the dry grasses and warm animal bodies. He hoped to breed Drest and Sagitta, and to eventually have a beautiful herd of strong black horses he could be proud of. For now, it was the work of any man, to clean out the stable and sluice it down with bucket after bucket from the aqueduct, to check the horses’ hooves and their eyes, to climb up and fix the thatch on the roof that shouldn’t have been coming down already (but then, Marcus was new to thatching and hadn’t known all the tricks yet).

By the time he was up on the roof, the sun was merciless in its mid-morning beaming, and Esca felt that he nearly had his back pressed up against it. There was no one around to see him, so he pulled his tunic off and tossed it down to the ground and knelt up to let the breeze cool his sweat-soaked torso.

“Leave that alone,” he called to the two grazing horses, who didn’t even look up at him when he warned them. He spoke to them as he’d spoken to his father’s horses back in his life before, or was it two times before now? His life had changed considerably once again, and sometimes Esca felt that he was dragging the remnants of those previous lives into every room with him, that those around were looking at him and seeing through him to see broken pieces of those other lives, seeing the slave and the barbarian prince. Of course, that didn’t mean that he was sure what they should be seeing. He didn’t know what he was himself yet, though it didn’t matter as much when he could lose himself in working.

“You abandoned me for breakfast. Are you going to make me eat my mid day meal alone as well?” Marcus called up to him, raising a hand to shade his eyes as he looked up to where Esca was diligently mending the thatching. It was a long walk out here, but walking wasn’t the chore it had been a few years before so he welcomed it. He grinned when Esca startled and looked back; falling wasn’t a concern, as he knew Esca climbed and clung like a squirrel. “Was it the winds doing damage that make you climb up there?”

How could Esca tell Marcus, as he stood there with his smile and his sun-golden face and basket with food in his hand, that it was his novice handling of thatch that had called him up to work for hours in the sun above the rest of the land? Instead he nodded in agreement before answering.

“Must have been those higher winds overnight. I’ve only a few more to pin down. Are you on your way somewhere?” He looked back to his work as Marcus answered, listening as his voice changed direction when the Roman walked to pick up his discarded tunic.

“On my way to you. I’ve brought lunch for us, and I figured this was where you’d disappeared to. You spend more time with the horses than with me.” There wasn’t real jealousy in his voice, at least Esca didn’t think there was, and Marcus was straightforward when it came to his feelings. He didn’t hide them and let them fester, as Esca knew he himself did at times. Instead, he was teasing, and maybe there was something else there too.

Esca tied off the last bundle with a sharp jerk of his wrist, then leaned back to look over his handiwork. “You know you’re always welcome when I come up here,” he said casually, then looked down. Sagitta had gone over to Marcus and was nuzzling him for the tasty gift he must have brought. “You’re not even listening to me,” he mumbled to himself, but he was smiling as he climbed down.

Once he had his feet on the ground again, he stood in the shade of the structure and enjoyed the cool dark of it. The day was scorching hot, and his body was drenched with sweat; his mind turned longingly to the aqueduct he’d walked along. The water, in his memory, was cooler and sweeter as it rushed along than it could ever actually be. From the shade, he watched Marcus, how easy his hands moved on the horses’ faces and glossy necks, how he still stood favoring his leg though the wound had been healed for some time now.  There was a pleasure in watching him, especially when Marcus didn’t know himself observed. There was something intimate in the knowledge, a privacy and secrecy in watching him and knowing the lines of his body where the folds of his tunic hid it.

“How long are you going to skulk there like a bandit?” Marcus’ voice cut through his thoughts. Esca grimaced as he walked toward him. How awful, to be caught like that, to know someone was watching you when you thought he was unaware of your watching him. “Come on, here’s your shirt. Let’s find somewhere to eat.”

A little walk brought them down to the edge of one of the orchards, with the apricots growing lusciously orange over their heads as they sat on the ground in the trees dappled shade. Esca let Marcus talk about his morning while he tore his bread into small pieces to eat, liking that the other man filled in his silences. There was, as always, a festival to prepare for, with cleaning and other preparations that he’d grown used to even as they were not his ways. Marcus also had another man offering to buy some of his eastern land. The eastern land was rich with olives, and Esca couldn’t imagine that Marcus would even consider selling it. However, when Marcus’ voice trailed off in the middle of his explanation of the other landowner’s offer, Esca looked over at him sharply.

“What? You’re not actually considering it? You said that the oil...what are you looking at?” He frowned when he saw that Marcus was looking at him, but not at his face.

“Look what you’ve done to yourself there, Esca,” Marcus laughed, reaching over to touch his bare shoulder. It stung as though his finger was a wasp. Looking down, craning his neck to try to see his shoulder, it was apparent. “You’ve burned that white British skin under our sun. You’re red as a dyed egg. Does it hurt?”

“When you poke it, it does. Stop!” Esca grabbed Marcus’ hand before he could touch his reddened skin again. “Your country does not like me, and it makes it clear day by day.” He huffed as he released Marcus’ hand, trying to look at himself again.

“When I press your skin, it turns white then red again,” Marcus told him. He was quiet for a minute as he watched Esca with a smile. “There are herbs at the villa to ease burns. Just leave it be for now. You’ll get used to our sun, as the sun will grow used to you.” He laid back in the grass, hands beneath his head.

Esca looked down at him, ignoring how hot his back was. He knew he couldn’t lie down as Marcus had; that would be painful, even though it looked so comfortable as he watched the other man. But from up here, he could look at the way the sunlight came through the leaves onto Marcus’ face, though he closed his eyes against the intrusion. His dark eyelashes made shadows that fluttered when his eyes moved under the closed lids. Esca liked the straight line of his nose, the broadness of his cheekbones. The hollows that had been in his face when he’d first met Marcus, convalescing after his injury, were all gone. His face was full, and his body strong.

Taking a deep breath, he moved smoothly to climb onto him, looking down belligerently when Marcus opened his eyes. He settled over his hips, shifting his weight to get himself comfortable while watching the color rise in the other man’s face.

“What?” he demanded, keeping his expression neutral even as he thrilled to feel Marcus squirm beneath him, to watch his thoughts racing even as he said nothing. “Do you have something to say?”

“I don’t know if I have breath to,” Marcus murmured as he met Esca’s eyes. “What’re you doing up there?”

Esca smiled and closed his eyes, turning his face up to the sky. Marcus had made it sound like he was on top of a mountain, or as if he’d suddenly learned to fly. The breeze ruffled the leaves and he could feel the pattern of sun and leaf-shaped shade shifting over his face before he looked down again.

“Daring your world to see us,” he said quietly. “For what we are.”

Marcus reached up to cup his hand against Esca’s cheek, sliding his fingers almost wonderingly against his jawline before letting his thumb smooth over his cheekbone. Esca let himself relax into his touch, let his eyelids draw down slowly  over his eyes. It was good to be touched with this sort of wonder and fondness, and another type of good to be touched this way out in the air when there were no walls to hide him.

“I don’t know,” Marcus replied in a murmur. He was already smiling slightly, a tease in the right corner of his growing grin. “You dared the sun today already and lost.” He laughed when Esca sat up and punched his shoulder, then laughed even harder at the furious look on the Briton’s face when he sat up and crossed his arms. “Oh, come now. Eventually your skin will grow golden and the sun will cease to beat on you so cruelly. It is the same sun, Esca.”

Any anger he wished to save up was lost when Marcus said his name. He still never quite pronounced it correctly, warring between the sharper way of touching all the letters with his teeth the way all Romans did and giving it too much softness as he attempted to emulate Esca’s native way of saying his own name. Esca found that he didn’t mind; it was like having a secret name only Marcus could use, found somewhere between Britannia and here.

“It is the same sun,” he allowed, tossing his head slightly to get his hair out of his eyes. “I suppose I dared and it called my bluff.”

“Or maybe,” Marcus said soothingly, rubbing his arms and then gentling him down to lie on his chest, “It was merely giving you a sign.”

“What sort of sign?” Esca demanded, which was how he asked any question. Resting his head against Marcus’ shoulder, he didn’t bother to pretend he intended to get up again. There were times to fight and times to lie down; he could feel the sting of his back and the dried sweat on his neck and the pleasant buzz of worked muscles in his arms and shoulders, and then the lazy content sensation of having eaten until he was full. Above them, the fruit hung heavy on the branches, and he imagined it felt just the same way, sun-touched and full of juice.

“Well…” Marcus was quiet for a moment too long, and Esca turned his head slightly to make sure he hadn’t just dozed off. But he hadn’t. He was looking up at the tree and thinking, so Esca let him think for that extra moment more. “It’s a sign you’ve been seen.”

“And then been burned for it?”

“No, no, no,” Marcus immediately argued. “Well...yes. Obviously. But that’s just how we are.” Esca knew he meant Rome and everything that meant. Marcus didn’t shy away from what it meant, and his own place in it, even if his mind had changed on so much. He took responsibility, which he seemed to think was the most Roman thing of all, while Esca believed it was something British that had gotten into him. “We hurt first, without thinking. Then we realize how precious a thing is, and we have to learn to stop.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Esca pointed out, poking his stiff finger into Marcus’ side.

“No, it’s not,” Marcus agreed, turning his head to look down to where Esca’s head rested on him. He smiled again. “But I’m living proof that it works. Come on, Esca. Dare the world again?”

Esca rolled his eyes, but it was too late for Marcus not to have seen his smile. “How am I daring it this time?”

“Kiss me, then steal an apricot off the tree.” Marcus only raised his eyebrows to Esca’s dubious expression. “Don’t look at me that way. You know how to start a kiss yourself by now.”

Esca immediately raised himself on one elbow to gain better leverage, kissing Marcus with a ferocity he doubted anyone else would appreciate. There was the slight sting when Marcus forgot himself and put his fingers against his burned back, but that was good too, really. The sun, as it came through the leaves above them, was gentle and diffuse, and he didn’t have to hide anything from it now.

 


End file.
